Page 74 - Vinkler, Jonatan, Ana Beguš and Marcello Potocco. Eds. 2019. Ideology in the 20th Century: Studies of literary and social discourses and practices. Koper: University of Primorska Press
P. 74
Ideology in the 20th Century: studies of literary and social discourses and practices
lationships. Storytelling—the stories and the way they are told—pray a
creative part in the forming of social relations, social processes and their
consequences. The priority Silko gives to relations that might form the
future material basis of a society is where she clearly departs from capital-
ist and Marxist concepts or where the ‘delinking’ takes place.
In the preface to the collection Woven Stone, Simon Ortiz describes
the importance of storytelling in traditional Native social structures:
Oral tradition is inclusive; it is the actions, behavior, relationships, practic-
es throughout the whole social, economic, and spiritual life process of peo-
ple (Ortiz 1992, 7).
Cheyfitz explains that it is impossible to separate the aesthetic dimen-
sion of oral literature from the social structures it supports and creates.
74 Herein he sees the problem of the stories translated and written down by
anthropologists, without paying attention to the social context. “What is
lost in translation, necessarily, is the social forms of the oral tradition—
and that is pretty much everything” (Cheyfitz 2006, 69). Oral litera-
ture as a part of traditional societies used to have a creative social func-
tion that modern literature as art cannot (or refuses to) fulfill any more.
Cheyfitz understands novels as Ceremony as representations of tradition-
al social functions of oral literatures (cf. Cheyfitz 2006, 69). Though, this
representation can in a certain historical context acquire new political
functions in the struggle for social justice.
Traces of a participatory epistemology can be found—besides in the
representation of the social functions of oral literature—in the critique of
a non-reflected proliferation of texts. This critique can be found both, in
Foerster’s autobiographic book and in N. Scott Momaday’s famous nov-
el House Made of Dawn (1968). Foerster is irritated by the part of the sci-
entific discourse he disrespectfully calls ‘sokalogy’ (Foerster 2002, 315–
326), referring to the scandal caused by an allegedly scientific article by
Alan D. Sokal published in the journal Social Text in 1996. Momaday on
the other hand speaks critically about the treatment of language in “the
white man’s world” in general:
In the white man’s world, language, too—and the way in which the white
man thinks of it—has undergone a process of change. The white man takes
such things as words and literatures for granted, as indeed he must, for noth-
ing in his world is so commonplace. On every side of him there are words by
the millions, an unending succession of pamphlets and papers, letters and
books, bills and bulletins, commentaries and conversations. He has diluted
and multiplied the Word, and words have begun to close in upon him. He
lationships. Storytelling—the stories and the way they are told—pray a
creative part in the forming of social relations, social processes and their
consequences. The priority Silko gives to relations that might form the
future material basis of a society is where she clearly departs from capital-
ist and Marxist concepts or where the ‘delinking’ takes place.
In the preface to the collection Woven Stone, Simon Ortiz describes
the importance of storytelling in traditional Native social structures:
Oral tradition is inclusive; it is the actions, behavior, relationships, practic-
es throughout the whole social, economic, and spiritual life process of peo-
ple (Ortiz 1992, 7).
Cheyfitz explains that it is impossible to separate the aesthetic dimen-
sion of oral literature from the social structures it supports and creates.
74 Herein he sees the problem of the stories translated and written down by
anthropologists, without paying attention to the social context. “What is
lost in translation, necessarily, is the social forms of the oral tradition—
and that is pretty much everything” (Cheyfitz 2006, 69). Oral litera-
ture as a part of traditional societies used to have a creative social func-
tion that modern literature as art cannot (or refuses to) fulfill any more.
Cheyfitz understands novels as Ceremony as representations of tradition-
al social functions of oral literatures (cf. Cheyfitz 2006, 69). Though, this
representation can in a certain historical context acquire new political
functions in the struggle for social justice.
Traces of a participatory epistemology can be found—besides in the
representation of the social functions of oral literature—in the critique of
a non-reflected proliferation of texts. This critique can be found both, in
Foerster’s autobiographic book and in N. Scott Momaday’s famous nov-
el House Made of Dawn (1968). Foerster is irritated by the part of the sci-
entific discourse he disrespectfully calls ‘sokalogy’ (Foerster 2002, 315–
326), referring to the scandal caused by an allegedly scientific article by
Alan D. Sokal published in the journal Social Text in 1996. Momaday on
the other hand speaks critically about the treatment of language in “the
white man’s world” in general:
In the white man’s world, language, too—and the way in which the white
man thinks of it—has undergone a process of change. The white man takes
such things as words and literatures for granted, as indeed he must, for noth-
ing in his world is so commonplace. On every side of him there are words by
the millions, an unending succession of pamphlets and papers, letters and
books, bills and bulletins, commentaries and conversations. He has diluted
and multiplied the Word, and words have begun to close in upon him. He
